#702: All over the place

Hey, Mick Farren died. He was 69. Don't know a whole lot about him, except that with Lemmy he co-wrote the excellent dark rocker "Lost Johnny" on Hawkwind's above-average HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN GRILL album (1974). Farren was also a prominent member of the late-'60s British underground, & was quoted extensively in Johnathan Green's oral history about that scene & period, DAYS IN THE LIFE, which I read a few years back.
Farren was reportedly quite a character -- a music journalist & member of late-'60s punk-revolutionary band The Deviants. He occasionally released solo albums that had cool titles like VAMPIRES STOLE MY LUNCH MONEY. He also wrote a string of science-fiction novels, starting with the rock-flavored THE TEXTS OF FESTIVAL, which has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read for years.
Apparently Farren died after collapsing on-stage while performing with his band The Deviants. That seems an appropriate way to go out....

Hope you've been catching rock critics Jim DeRogatis & Greg Kot's SOUND OPINIONS, which airs here every Sunday night at 10 on the University of Washington's KUOW-FM. Last night's show was a "Buried Treasures" special, in which the guys pointed out some current albums worthy of more attention.
Normally this would be an immediate tune-out for me, but in my current state of Musical Boredom, I held on. They played a few things that weren't bad. Two songs in particular impressed me:
* "Counting," by a Chicago rapper performing under the name Autre Ne Veut, from his album ANXIETY. Maybe this is rap, but it sounded more like futuristic soul to me, with lots of whirring machine-like sounds & keyboard washes. & the lyrics were pretty desperate. Murmured, not rapped. Pretty haunting.
* "Irene" by Trixie Whitley from her album FOURTH CORNER. This also sounds like soul/R&B, with very strong vocals.
Some of the other stuff Jim & Greg played was above-average though not stunning -- still better than tuning-out. But I might have to check out the two artists above. Plus I really should look into Savages' SILENCE YOURSELF....
Next week, Jim & Greg are supposed to play The Greatest Rock Instrumentals Of All Time. Should be a great one....

The latest playlist, pretty much the same old stuff:
Three Dog Night -- Let Me Serenade You, My Impersonal Life.
Badfinger -- No Matter What, Day After Day, Baby Blue, The Name of the Game, Rock of All Ages.
Doobie Brothers -- Neal's Fandango.
The Church -- Reptile, Under the Milky Way, Metropolis.
Modern English -- I Melt With You.
Fleetwood Mac -- Oh Well, Why?
Van Morrison -- Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile), Domino, Wild Night, Cleaning Windows.
The Move -- Message from the Country, Do Ya?, Tonite.
Like the orchestrations & Pete Ham's apparently unpracticed vocal on Badfinger's "Name of the Game." & "Rock of All Ages" is a lot of fun.
The Church's "Metropolis" has some nice guitar work. Wish I could get into the rest of their best-of. & I'm still looking for a gorgeous guitar-drenched instrumental by them that I heard once on the radio around 1988 & have never heard since. Anybody got any ideas...?

Am more than halfway through Hunter S. Thompson's huge collection of early letters, THE PROUD HIGHWAY. For the past couple dozen pages he's been recounting his hilarious & painful adventures as a free-lance journalist in South America in the early 1960's. Some of his descriptions are laugh-out-loud funny. And an occasional line will stop my reading with a shock. The most surprising one-liner so far has been: "These guns will be the end of me." And that's exactly how it turned out. RIP....

Translating old posts into "Real English" continues here at the Back-Up Plan. So far, I've made it as far back as early May's post "The biggest missile base in the world." This rewrite work will be continuing....

On the way here are Kevin Ayers' BEST OF, Jim DeRogatis's KILL YR IDOLS, rock critic Robert Palmer's BLUES AND CHAOS, & two reminiscences by British SF writer Brian W. Aldiss: BURY MY HEART AT W.H. SMITH'S and THE BRIGHTFOUNT DIARIES. Reviews of all these are likely in the future....

Any musical suggestions? Please submit them below. If you know of any artists who mix British folk with loud guitars & keyboards & nice vocal harmonies (and aren't TOO expensive), they'd probably be right up my street....

#701: Back to CD's!

Restocked with CD's for what turned out to be the easiest Friday night at work in months. Also got started early with the music after calling a moratorium on News Radio -- because it just gets weirder & scarier & more twisted.
Here's some of what I've been listening to at work this week:

Brotherhood of Man -- United We Stand.
Box Tops -- Soul Deep, The Happy Song.
Bobby Darin -- If a Man Answers, Sermon of Sampson, All by Myself.
Brothers Johnson -- I'll Be Good to You.
Go-Go's -- Head Over Heels, You Thought, Forget That Day, Capture the Light, I'm With You, Can't Stop the World, Vacation.
Bangles -- Let it Go, September Gurls, Not Like You, Manic Monday, Dover Beach, Going Down to Liverpool, Be With You.
Rascals -- See, Carry Me Back.
Bob Dylan -- Like a Rolling Stone, Tangled Up in Blue.
Lovin' Spoonful -- Summer in the City, Darling Be Home Soon, Six O'Clock.
Doobie Brothers -- Neal's Fandango, I Cheat the Hangman.
Boston -- Used to Bad News.
Stevie Wonder -- I Was Made to Love Her, Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Dah-Day, For Once in My Life, My Cherie Amour.
Rolling Stones -- Happy, Tumbling Dice, Street Fighting Man, Gimme Shelter.
Rush -- Time Stand Still, Force Ten.
Cars -- Bye Bye Love, All Mixed Up, Dangerous Type.
Deep Purple -- Highway Star.
Steely Dan -- My Old School.
Journey -- Feeling That Way/Anytime.
Simon and Garfunkel -- Fakin' It, The Only Living Boy in New York, A Hazy Shade of Winter, At the Zoo.
Ronettes -- Be My Baby, Baby I Love You, The Best Part of Breakin' Up, I Wonder, Do I Love You?
Pam Tillis -- Homeward Looking Angel.

As you can see, this is basically The Same Old Stuff with a few new additions -- which I usually tripped over by accident....
Have already mentioned that the Box Tops' "Happy Song" sounds like something Dave Mason or Traffic might have done on an upbeat day. I don't think it's a Lost Classic or anything, but it is catchy & it does grow on you, & it definitely sounds different than "Soul Deep" or "The Letter" or the Box Tops' other hits....
The Bobby Darin songs are from an early-'60s EP my Cousin Carol let me have 45 years ago -- also not classics, but they're OK pop for the period, with some nice twangy guitar here & there. "If a Man Answers" is kind of funny. "All By Myself" is NOT the Eric Carmen #1 hit of 15 years later -- more sort of a light-hearted look at being lonely(?).
The Doobies' "Neal's Fandango" continues to get comments when I play it in the store. Think they really missed out on a hit with this one. From STAMPEDE.
Stevie's "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Dah-Day" is as light & bouncy & charming as any forgotten Motown Top 10 hit, though I only heard it by accident between "I Was Made to Love Her" & "For Once in My Life." Why hadn't I ever heard it before? I'll have to go back & play it again, though it's obviously not a timeless work of art for the ages -- interesting that even Stevie's filler is almost as good as his classic hits.... From 20TH CENTURY MASTERS/BEST OF.
Why wasn't the Stones' "Street Fighting Man" a hit? Had to be the lyrics about revolution in the streets. If they couldn't get that played on the radio in '68/'69 it was probably never going to happen. Still haven't heard any "album rock" station play it, even though it (wisely) led-off their FORTY LICKS best-of....
Continue to be a sucker for the Ronettes, even though I don't think EVERYTHING they did was great, or sometimes even very inspired. But as soon as those gorgeous vocal harmonies kick in, I'm a goner. Ronnie's solo tracks "Why Don't They Let Us Fall in Love?" & "So Young" are iffy. But the rest are freakin' knockouts.
I still think "Best Part of Breakin' Up" (apart from Ronnie's sultry vocal) sounds like the Beach Boys snuck into the studio -- there's a real palm-trees-swaying-in-the-ocean-breeze vibe on this one; easy to see where Brian Wilson learned some of his production touches. "I Wonder" is still amazing, should've been a hit. & "Do I Love You?" is sweet & bouncy & bound to gain charm on repeated listenings.
I sat through practically all of the Ronettes' BE MY BABY best-of a year or two ago, but now I'm starting to wonder how much of it I actually HEARD. Will be investigating further....
More soon....

700??!!

OK, let's keep this fairly brief.
When I started doing this stuff 4-1/2 years ago I had no idea I'd end up writing 700 posts. Crap, I thought I was All Written Out a couple of years ago and had nothing left to say.
But lately, stuff just keeps popping into my head, so I keep putting it here.
I'm not sure what I'm writing, exactly. But since a novel doesn't seem to want to come out, maybe I'm writing my memoirs here while I can still remember stuff. And that's OK with me.
I remain Musically Bored, so if anybody's got any suggestions, Now's The Time.
I can still get caught off-guard by stuff. Last night at work I was playing some tapes from my old Wyoming buddy Jim Yule's record collection, and was tripped up by some sort of good-timey male acoustic duo doing some kind of light-hearted party song, sort of a "Dear Mr. Fantasy" without the dragging length, over in two minutes without wearing out its welcome. It sounded like something Dave Mason or Traffic might have done when they were mostly-awake.
But I didn't remember recording it, couldn't remember who it was, probably hadn't heard it since 1996 when I made the tape. So I had to go home and check my files to clear up the mystery.
Turns out it was "The Happy Song" by the Box Tops, which I assume was the B-side of their great "Soul Deep." Which it sounds NOTHING like.
Not saying this is some Lost Classic for the ages or even a Great B-Side. But it was new and different to me, I didn't remember it, and there you go. Tracking down this kind of stuff is what this blog is supposed to be all about.
Something else that's struck me as odd recently: That post I did awhile back about Kevin Ayers' ODD DITTIES ("Sitting on the beach like Clarence in Wonderland," see below) has had 40 views so far. That's a lot for this blog. I never know what's going to get looked at the most, what's going to ring your chimes Out There....
Over the past few days I've also been going back and turning my older posts into "Real English." No more "shorthand" or texting-style. I've made it as far back as that "Dream 3" post at the end of May. Only 475 more  to go!
The reason for this is ... for one, I got a comment awhile back that convinced me maybe it's time to Grow Up a little bit here. Not that I plan to start taking myself seriously....
The other reason is -- now more than ever I want to be understood, I want feedback, I want to know what you folks Out There think. And I'm never going to get that if the stuff I post here is too hard to read.
Plus it always helps to have a Mission In Life....
At least since "The poster-child for stressing-out" or "My Worst Moment" it's seemed to me there's nothing I CAN'T write about, as long as I have somewhere to start and a handle on what I want to say.
I've posted some things here in the past that I was actually scared to put Out There, that I thought were too revealing, that had me shaking before I hit that "Publish" button.
But these days I'm not worried about that stuff. Full speed ahead! (As soon as I finish putting stuff into English....)
I'll still be reviewing things, but these days more than ever I am a Low Budget Guy. So if I can hear or read something & keep it cheap, that's where I'll be heading.
I predict More Nostalgia ahead too, though I never know when the next one's coming or where it will end up....
Thanks for reading here. And for gosh sakes, let me know what you think. I've been waiting for years for someone to tell me I'm full of shit, & it ain't happened yet.... (Which doesn't mean YOU need to jump in, Crabby....)
More soon....

#699: 8-by-40-foot trailer

After moving back home with my parents for over a year, early in 1980 Tina The Girlfriend & I pulled together our measly cash & moved into an antique 8-foot-wide, 40-foot-long mobile home on West Boise's main drag, Fairview Ave.
Located next door to a Wendy's, a used bookstore and pizza parlor were right across the street, & a record store was just around the corner. The location was perfect. & the price was right, because it was CHEAP. I was getting tired of sleeping on my parents' hide-a-bed in their living room. & I'm sure they were getting tired of me.
The trailer had Charm to spare. Built sometime in the '50s, it had cute little solid-wood cabinets & cute little closets & a cute little kitchen with a cute tiny refrigerator (and the world's smallest icebox) -- & an adorable little bathroom in which you could practically sit on the toilet, brush your teeth & take a shower all at the same time.
But you had to be FAST. The hot water for the shower ran out in about five minutes.
There were other bonus surprises: The trailer had a gas stove that had to be re-lit anytime you wanted to use it. So I'd stick my whole head into the oven, lit match in hand, search for the pilot light, and then BOOM! And I was ready to warm up some instant coffee. Needless to say, I didn't do that too often....
But the biggest surprise was when it rained. Then rain water would POUR out of the trailer's fuse box.
I'm still amazed we weren't electrocuted, or blown up in a gas explosion, or frozen when the hot water ran out. Oh, & in the winter, if you turned on the heater, it took about 20 minutes to START getting warm....
But we didn't care, it was OURS. We had privacy & a place to call our own, & the trailer was really comfy & charming -- if you ignore that I had to turn sideways to move up and down the hallway.
The place was crammed full of my music, my books, my rock&roll posters (some of which were stapled to the CEILING because there was no room on the walls), all of Tina's clothes and other belongings.... The living room was so small there was room for a loveseat on one wall (where I worked), and a small old wooden dining table with a chair on the other wall -- & just barely enough room to walk between the two.
There were other problems. The place was perfect for one person. For two, it was a little SMALL. And if someone got upset, there was nowhere to go.
I'd just become Singles Buyer for the local four-store Musicworks record-store "chain," & I took it with all the Seriousness of any job I've ever had -- Completely Seriously, And Don't Bother Me When I'm Working. When I first took over the work, I even took the job home with me, trying to get stuff organized. And bit Tina's head off when she tried to talk to me.
I don't blame her. I was a jerk. And we were probably too young to be trying to keep house together.
But we were so thrilled to have a place of our own, we didn't even realize what a run-down neighborhood it was.
Most of the other trailers in the trailer court were more beat-up than ours, though I don't remember any of them being much OLDER. The place really was pretty trashy, though I remember it as being pretty quiet. My cousin Jim lived right next door, & I wonder now how many of our arguments he must have overheard....
But we learned some strong People Skills while living there: We had one fairly obnoxious neighbor who lived across the court, & whenever she visited & started talking a mile a minute, I'd put on David Sancious and Tone's offbeat jazz-rock "Transformation (The Speed of Love)" as "mood music" -- and within 10 minutes the talky neighbor would be gone. Something about Sancious's odd melodic twists & turns would drive her out of the house. Worked every time.
Whenever the stress got to be too much (whether it was job-related or personal), I'd put on the Pretenders' first album -- and by the time I got to the glorious guitar meltdown at the end of "Lovers of Today" & the brutal kiss-off of "Mystery Achievement," I'd feel better. Because I knew that no matter how bad a day I might've had, Chrissie Hynde had lived through a bunch of them that were WORSE. That album got me through 1980 alive.
But after 9 months in the tiny trailer, things started going bad. I saw someone peek in our bedroom window one morning about 1 a.m., & when I moved to chase them all I saw was a flash of light running away. This triggered the first of several phone calls I made to the local police. I started sleeping with a club right next to the bed, just in case.
I had started reading the works of Hunter S. Thompson (THE GREAT SHARK HUNT, FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL '72), & perhaps was seeing the world as more complicated & sinister than I had before.
A friend needed somewhere to live cheap, & the three of us moved into a twice-as-big trailer elsewhere in the court. It was much nicer & much roomier, though darker.
And people still kept trying to break in....
I don't think we stayed longer than three months before moving to an upscale two-bedroom apartment across town, which is another part of the ongoing story....
The last time I was in Boise I noticed the old trailer court had been bulldozed (probably YEARS ago) and replaced by more stores....

#698: Great Instrumentals, Oldies, etc.

Or: As the Boredom Turns....
Continuing to be Musically Bored, but this past week olde jazz & prog-rock instrumentals & underplayed Oldies from my old Wyoming buddy Jim Yule's 45 collection Did The Job to keep me moving at work. Here's The List:

Happy the Man -- Service With a Smile.
Group 87 -- One Night Away From Day.
Steve Tibbetts -- Ur.
Camel -- Sasquatch.
Pat Metheny -- Phase Dance, New Chautauqua, The Search, Ozark, Praise, The First Circle.
Lyle Mays -- Ascent.
Synergy -- Icarus.
Mark Knopfler -- Going Home (Theme of the Local Hero).
Keith Jarrett -- Country.
Renaissance -- Rajah Khan.
Deodato -- Also Sprach Zarathustra (Theme from 2001).
Sky -- Where Opposites Meet, Vivaldi.
Gryphon -- Lament, Ethelion.
The Nice -- America.
Miles Davis -- It Never Entered My Mind.

Also:
Van Morrison -- Caravan, Into the Mystic.
Neil Diamond -- Crunchy Granola Suite.
Gordon Lightfoot -- High and Dry.
Bob Dylan -- One of Us Must Know.
Billy Joel -- All for Leyna.
Fleetwood Mac -- Green Manalishi.
Roxy Music -- The Thrill of it All.
Shawn Phillips -- Bright White.
Frank Zappa -- My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama, Directly from My Heart to You.
Nektar -- Do You Believe in Magic?
Carolyne Mas -- Stillsane, Sadie Says.
Spider -- New Romance (It's a Mystery), Burning Love, Shady Lady, Everything is Alright, Crossfire.
Pretenders -- Kid, Mystery Achievement, Talk of the Town, Message of Love, Birds of Paradise, Pack it Up, Back on the Chain Gang, Time the Avenger, 2000 Miles.

From the Jim Yule Oldies Collection:
Fanny -- Charity Ball.
Uriah Heep -- Easy Livin'.
Guess Who -- Road Food.
Gordon Lightfoot -- The Circle is Small.
Lobo -- A Simple Man.
Blue Ridge Rangers (John Fogerty) -- Hearts of Stone.
Mason Williams -- Classical Gas.
Fendermen -- Mule Skinner Blues.
Trashmen -- Surfin' Bird.
Dramatics -- What'cha See is What'cha Get.
Freddy Cannon -- Palisades Park.
Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart -- I Wonder What She's Doin' Tonight?
Beau Brummels -- Laugh Laugh.
Dave Mason -- We Just Disagree.
Faces/Rod Stewart -- Stay With Me.
Rick Nelson -- Hello Mary Lou, Stood Up, Waitin' in School, Be-Bop Baby.
Steam -- Kiss Him Goodbye.
Dion -- Daddy Rollin' (In Your Arms).
Del Shannon -- Runaway.
Cowsills -- Hair.
American Breed -- Bend Me Shape Me.
Johnny Rivers -- It Wouldn't Happen With Me, Memphis.
Beach Boys -- Kiss Me Baby.
Elvis -- Promised Land.
Chuck Berry -- You Never Can Tell.
Joe Cocker -- Feelin' Alright.
Music Explosion -- A Little Bit of Soul.
Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels -- Devil With a Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly.
Santana -- Everybody's Everything.
Gary Lewis & the Playboys -- Count Me In, This Diamond Ring.
Strawberry Alarm Clock -- Incense and Peppermints.
Association -- Windy.

...So, basically Nothing New here EITHER, but at least it kept me moving.
Response to most of this was pretty thin, except for those few who appreciated that there were Oldies playing -- "I can't stand the rap," one guy said ... & the married couple who walked into the store & saw me swooning to the Beach Boys' gorgeous "Kiss Me Baby." To go from that into Elvis -- well, what more could you ask for on a summer Saturday night...?
I have my own sentimental Olde Favorites in this list. I still think Spider sounds pretty great -- from Peter Coleman's trebly high-impact production to Holly Knight's solid pop songs & Amanda Blue's loopy vocals, these guys should've been famous. & drummer Anton Fig now plays with Dave Letterman's CBS Orchestra....
Carolyne Mas was hyped back in '79/'80 as a female answer to Bruce Springsteen -- I now think she sounds like a female Billy Joel -- lotsa New York accent & Attitude....
..."Rajah Khan" is the loudest, most ... forgive me ... "psychedelic" thing Renaissance ever did, a swirling mix of spacey Middle Eastern Arabian-Nights-type sound, wordless vocals from Annie Haslam, & great loud guitar. They should've gotten loud & -- comparatively -- dark like this more often....
...I still think "One of Us Must Know" is THE great lost Bob Dylan hit. It's got the same sound as "Like a Rolling Stone," the same great musical accompaniment, & the lyrics are hilarious.
...Steve Tibbetts' "Ur" is still the ultimate speaker-melting guitar piece. He's never cranked it up as loud again, it seems....
Consider everything in the above list Recommended if you've never heard it before.
Still accepting Musical Recommendations if anyone Out There has any....
More soon....

#697: Take 2.1

OK, since yesterday's suggested radio format went so well (more than 30 views overnight, which is almost a new record for me), how about this one?:

TOP OF THE HOUR.
3 minutes of National & Local News. Then:
Deep Purple -- Hush.
Beatles -- I'm Down.
COMMERCIAL.
Steve Earle -- Copperhead Road.
Charlie Pride -- Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone?
COMMERCIAL.
Afro-Man -- Because I Got High.
Eminem -- Ass Like That.
COMMERCIAL.
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles -- You've Really Got a Hold on Me.
Aretha Franklin and George Michael -- I Knew You Were Waiting for Me.

BOTTOM OF THE HOUR.
2 minutes of National and Local News. Then:
ELP -- Fanfare for the Common Man (long version).
COMMERCIAL.
Bob Dylan -- One of Us Must Know.
Fanny -- Charity Ball.
COMMERCIAL.
Dave Brubeck -- Take Five.
Aaron Copland/Eduardo Mata/Dallas Symphony Orchestra -- Hoedown.
Uriah Heep -- Easy Livin'.

TOP OF THE HOUR.
Into 3 minutes of National and Local News....
(This updated version breaks up the commercials & music a little more -- which maybe most people wouldn't like; they'd prefer the four-track blocks of music in the previous format. But this is probably closer to Real Life radio....)

See how easy this is? Any trained chimpanzee could do it. & there's room for hits from all eras, album tracks, weird stuff, rock, heavy-rock, singer-songwriters, jazz, country, classical, comedy, blues (an area I'm pretty weak on) -- basically anything. It's not hard. It doesn't have to be so far out that listeners get scared away.
So why can't anybody do it?
No reason this format couldn't have "theme" hours -- the "on the road" hour (Born to Run/Running On Empty/Highway Star/On the Road Again, etc), or the "rain" hour (Who Will Stop the Rain?/Have You Ever Seen the Rain?/In the Rain/Rain, etc.) -- though those might get cliched pretty fast. & I'm sure it's been done on FM before. The key would be to have a little IMAGINATION about it -- something that seems in short supply at Radio these days....
Keep those kind donations coming, folks, & we'll make it happen. We want the airwaves!

I've reluctantly decided to delay my big cash-mongering trip to my "local" Half-Price Books store, since today is supposed to be the hottest day of the year so far, here. Don't want my big box full of vinyl to melt on the way there. But I'll keep you posted....

I really love Locus. Really. Even though lately it's become more&more like a list of "Which famous writers have died recently?" But I sure wish it was a lot more like Bookslut....

Still working my way through Hunter S. Thompson's huge selection of early letters, THE PROUD HIGHWAY. It's laugh-out-loud funny in lots of places, and amazingly shows off a lot more personality (and desperation) than his later letters collection FEAR AND LOATHING IN AMERICA (which is reviewed below under the title "Scrambling for $$$"). More on this eventually....

COMING SOON: It's Money That Matters....

#696: Crossection

A suggested experimental radio format:

TOP OF THE HOUR.
Coming out of 3 minutes of National & Local News:
Easybeats -- "Friday on My Mind."
Cheap Trick -- "Surrender."
Eagles -- "The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks."
Beyonce -- "Irreplaceable."
COMMERCIALS.
Marvin Gaye -- "Inner City Blues."
Spinners -- "I'm Coming Home."
Stylistics -- "You Are Everything."
Beatles -- "There's a Place."

BOTTOM OF THE HOUR. 2 minutes of National & Local News.
Then:
REO -- "Don't Let Him Go."
Five Man Electrical Band -- "Absolutely Right."
Johnny Cash -- "Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog."
Buck Owens -- "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail."
COMMERCIALS.
Fleetwood Mac -- "Hypnotized."
John Coltrane -- "Giant Steps."
Miles Davis -- "It Never Entered My Mind."
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass -- "A Beautiful Friend."
TOP OF THE HOUR, into 3 minutes of National & Local News....

This is just for starters. All the songs could be exchanged for others of a similar genre. SURPRISE should be the format's motto. That and WHAT'S NEXT? Or even WHO'S NEXT?!
Possible changes/additions:
* Replace Beyonce with any GOOD Urban/R&B/Rap/Hip-Hop song from the past decade (your choice). (Outkast's "Hey Ya" for example....)
* Replace Marvin Gaye with any good Motown hit or album track from the '60s/'70s.
* Replace "There's a Place" with any good Beatles B-side or album track.
* Replace Fleetwood Mac with any other good underplayed Mac song.
* Toss in a '70s singer-songwriter to replace The Spinners or The Stylistics -- Joni Mitchell's "Coyote" or "Raised on Robbery," Carole King's "Been to Canaan," Jackson Browne's "The Fuse," Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic," Cat Stevens's "Bitterblue," Jim Croce's "Lover's Cross," Steely Dan's "Gaucho," etc.
* Toss in BOC's "Morning Final"/"E.T.I."/"Astronomy" (IMAGINOS version) to replace REO or The Eagles -- or some other good heavy-rock song: Deep Purple's "Hush"/"Kentucky Woman"/"Highway Star," Motorhead's "Killed by Death," AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap," Hawkwind's "You'd Better Believe It," Led Zeppelin's "Over the Hills and Far Away"/"The Rover"/"Immigrant Song," Spooky Tooth's "Feelin' Bad," etc.
* Replace the Country stuff with any other good seldom-heard-on-pop-radio Country song since the '60s ("Six Days on the Road," "The Girl on the Billboard," "Passionate Kisses," "Melancholy Child," "Whenever You Walk in the Room," etc).
* Replace Herb Alpert with Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" or any other GOOD MOR hit from the '60s -- Glen Campbell's "It's Only Make Believe," Petula Clark's "I Know a Place," Fifth Dimension's "Carpet Man," etc. ...or even a REAL Oldie like Louis Jordan's "Barnyard Boogie."
* Toss in other jazz numbers -- Thelonious Monk's "Underground," Miles Davis's "In a Silent Way," Keith Jarrett's "Country," etc.
* Toss in a recognized Classical piece now & then -- Aaron Copland's "Hoedown" or the "Simple Gifts" coda to "Appalachian Spring," etc.
* Toss in a Prog Rock Oldie -- Yes's "The South Side of the Sky," ELP's "Karn Evil 9/First Impression (Part 1)," Genesis's "Inside and Out," King Crimson's "Frame By Frame," etc.
* Keep the Local News in there so folks know if there's an ugly wreck on the freeway or some other emergency.

If I can come up with this format -- which SHOULD work and could potentially please a wide variety of listeners -- in less than 10 minutes, why can't Radio grow some balls and do it?
And if somebody wants to donate lots of cash, I'll make it happen. We'll probably have to BUY a radio station first.... Please make your kind and generous donations below....
Suggestions and complaints are welcome, too....
DO YOU THINK THIS COULD WORK?

#695: My Worst Moment....

...as a newspaper reporter had nothing to do with reporting. Way more to do with interpersonal communication & overwork & stress.
This post is for you Out There who've somehow gotten the impression that I'm A Nice Guy. I'm not. Or at least I sometimes wasn't back in my reporting days. It's also offered as an extreme example of what stress & overwork can lead to. Here's what happened....
It's mid-May 1999 at the world's smallest weekly newspaper, somewhere on the Washington coast. After pulling together another stress-filled issue, the Editor -- let's call her Judith -- calls the four-member writing&layout staff together for a Friday planning meeting. Where she drops the bomb that the annual Tourism Special Edition -- a 24-page advertising-filled tourist brochure -- is due MONDAY, on top of the usual work required for the next normal issue of the paper.
Then she drops another bomb: Myself, the Sports Editor & the Layout chief (who is my wife, who worked for 6 stress-filled months at the paper with me) are going to pull the Tourism Edition together while The Editor spends her weekend across the state in Spokane. She's going to write and do NOTHING for the Tourism Issue.
And she just leaves it there. The meeting breaks up. & I'm furious.
Because this continues a pattern The Editor has had since she came aboard 8 months earlier. She does only what she wants, dumps all the work on everybody else, blames other people for her mistakes, and spreads stress like a plague carrier. When the paper is delivered to the printers late, she blames everybody else for her short-sightedness -- when the front page is usually waiting for her writing & layout work to get finished before it can be delivered.
Over the last 6 months I've been doing more & more writing. At the worst point I'm covering 4 nighttime meetings per week, then coming back into the office at 9 a.m., writing my ass off. I'm on salary so I collect no Overtime. I hardly ever see my kids. About the only time I see my wife is when we bump into each other in the office. & Judith keeps piling on the work. Every time she calls my name from inside her walled-in cubicle my stomach locks up in knots because I know it means More Work.
We've had words before. The last time was when she asked me to do a hatchet job on an overworked city employee -- a guy who was hired to do all the stuff the Mayor and City Engineer couldn't get to. "He just smells wrong," she said. "There's got to be something there." This guy had never hurt anyone as far as I knew. There was no reason for us to go after him. I told her to write the hatchet job herself. She never wrote it, of course. Because there was nothing there to write.
This time around I'm so angry that I'm shaking.
"Can we talk about this?" I ask gently.
"No!" she said, slamming stuff into her travel bag. "I'm outta here. I need a break."
"Yeah, but you're leaving all the work for us."
"I'm allowed a break. I'm going to Spokane."
"That's nothing new," I said. "You take EVERY weekend off. While we clean up behind you."
"You guys can handle it."
"You're counting on that to be true," I said, and I start following her around the office as she gathers stuff to put in her bag. "You always dump all the work on us so you can have the weekend off."
"I do not," she said.
"You DO," I said. My voice is getting louder. "You never do your share, you always leave the work for everyone else. When is enough enough? Where do you draw the line at?"
"Mind your own business," she said. "I'm leaving!"
She goes into the back room to grab her coffee cup. I follow her. By now I'm yelling. I'm full of anger because I know I'm right. This has been coming on for a long time.
"This IS my business!" I yell into her face. "When does it STOP?! How much work do you think you can dump on people before they freak out?! We're ALL overworked! We're ALL burned out! When do WE get to go to Spokane?!"
"Shut UP!"
"NO!" I yelled. "You don't GET it! You dump work on everybody! You do NOTHING! All you do is create stress! You don't know what the F you're doing!"
"Get the F away from me!" she yells.
"NO! Run away to Spokane! Who CARES?! Don't F'ing come back! WHO CARES?! YOU don't! Get the F outta here! We'll cover for you! We always DO!"
"Get the F away from me!" she repeats, this time lower, angrier. I have her backed into a corner as we yell into each other's faces. All the rest of the newspaper's employees are out front in the main office where I'm sure our voices are echoing. Our Publisher is upstairs, directly above us, and can hear every word. And no one is interrupting.
She makes a break for it and heads for the front office.
"You're F'ing NUTS!" she yells. "I'm F'ing outta here! Who CARES if you do the work?! It's YOUR F'ing JOB! Don't do it and you're FIRED! See ya!"
I scream gibberish at her as she runs out the office door. Something about how I hope she crashes and burns and ends up dead in a ditch. Something like that. I walk back to my desk and collapse.
So much for professionalism. I'm still shaking. It's VERY quiet in the office. I expect my Publisher to come downstairs and fire me. It doesn't happen.
Over the next half-hour or so, 3 or 4 of my co-workers swing by my cubicle and say thanks for putting The Editor in her place. They've wanted to say all that stuff for a long time.
"Sure," I tell them. "Next time YOU do it."
The Sports Editor, my wife & I pull together the Tourism Issue over the weekend. We recycle a lot of info from the year before. None of us get paid any overtime for the 12-hour days we put in writing, photographing, updating and laying-out the issue. But that's nothing new, and the package gets done on time. It's one of the last things my wife does for the paper -- 6 months later she decides to divorce me.
The Editor returns Monday morning, & checks to see that the Tourism Issue got done. I cringe in my chair wondering what she'll say to me, but instead she goes upstairs to see The Publisher. They talk for an hour behind closed doors. Then she comes back downstairs, goes into her cubicle, grabs her things, and leaves.
It's quiet in the office for a minute or two. Then our Receptionist says "Uh ... I think Judith just Left."
She didn't even tell the Publisher she was quitting. Later that afternoon, he offers the Editor's job to me. I've told him No twice before, but this time I think I couldn't possibly do a worse job than Judith. So I say Yes.
And immediately Judith gets her revenge from beyond the grave, so to speak.
Immediately I start doing 50-hour work weeks, or more. I continue writing my ass off. The stress is actually less because I'm in charge, but the same amount of writing I was doing as a reporter is still there.
The first issue comes off pretty well. A local alternative highschool holds a rather modest and secretive graduation ceremony -- bassist Krist Novoselic of Nirvana is the surprise guest speaker. One of the girl grads pauses to pose for me right after getting her diploma, and it makes a beautiful front-page picture.
After that it gets tougher. Much tougher. My wife takes the kids and a friend and goes off to Canada for a week. I still don't realize my marriage is in serious trouble. I still think Life Is Good as I approach 40. I even take a week off to celebrate my 40th birthday....
And when I come back to work after my first vacation in three years, by 9 a.m. I'm hyperventilating, and soon after I'm lying on my back on the floor, gasping for breath like a fish....

#694: It's only music

Is it possible to get completely bored with this stuff? I'm still listening to my Olde Favorites at work, but trying to vary it up a little, trying to dig out stuff I haven't heard in awhile. Whatever keeps me moving. Here's The List:

Bubble Puppy -- Hot Smoke and Sassafras.
Pat Metheny -- New Chatauqua.
John Miles -- Highfly.
George Harrison -- What is Life?
ELO -- Can't Get it Out of My Head.
Mamas and the Papas -- 12:30, California Dreaming.
The Who -- I'm the Face, Disguises, So Sad About Us, I Can't Reach You, I Can See for Miles, Armenia City in the Sky, Tattoo, Our Love Was, Sunrise, Little Billy, Dogs, Dreaming From the Waist (live), Call Me Lightning, Let's See Action, Long Live Rock, Naked Eye (live).
John Mellencamp -- Authority Song.
Lynyrd Skynyrd -- Tuesday's Gone.
Hall and Oates -- Diddy Doo Wop (I Hear the Voices).
Police -- Does Everyone Stare?, On Any Other Day.
Donovan -- Season of the Witch.
Marshall Tucker Band -- Heard it in a Love Song.
Delaney and Bonnie and Friends -- Only You Know and I Know.
Dion -- Ruby Baby.
Chicago -- Critic's Choice, In Terms of Two.
Kingston Trio -- Greenback Dollar.
Yardbirds -- Heart Full of Soul.
Steam -- Kiss Him Goodbye.
ELP -- Karn Evil 9 1st Impression (Parts 1&2).
Neil Diamond -- Crunchy Granola Suite, Walk on Water.
Cheap Trick -- Surrender, Voices.
Steve Tibbetts -- Ur.

The only one of these that got a Reaction from the Unsuspecting Public was Neil's "Crunchy Granola Suite," which had a woman in her 60s bouncing around & singing along with. I laughed & asked if she was familiar with the song & she said "Oh yes -- but I don't get why women my age think he's so hot...."
So we talked that one over, agreeing that when Neil was in his Weird Period in the early '70s he did some Great Stuff, & that his mid-'60s leather-jacket phase was pretty great too.
But she really threw me when she said the greatest concert she ever saw was by Nine Inch Nails. She agreed they were pretty intense & suggested I might want to listen more.... & considering I've hardly heard anything by them....

I'm about to sell-off 5 years' worth of CD's, albums & books that didn't quite work for me -- a big box & 3 bags worth of stuff headed for my nearest Half-Price Books (in Tacoma, about 30 miles away) on my next weekend -- hopefully to help me with a current ...*AHEM* ... cash-flow problem. Most of what's going is stuff that Just Didn't Work, stuff that wasn't bad but which I can live without, or items I have duplicates of on vinyl or CD. I don't expect to be bringing home any New Music -- I'm seriously in it for the cash -- but I'll keep you posted.
Going off in the pile are OK-but-not-great works by ELP, Return to Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Soft Machine, Gong, etc., plus books I've decided I'll clearly never get around to reading -- or reading again. I go through these clear-the-decks phases every year or two, but it's been 5 years since I've had an excuse to visit Half-Price. I'm hoping it's worth the trip. I'm also kind of bummed that I apparently spent my money on The Wrong Stuff....
I am so bored musically right now that I started reading Kim Cooper & David Smay's BUBBLEGUM MUSIC IS THE NAKED TRUTH -- which actually has some real good solid info in it if you're a sucker for the Monkees, Partridge Family, Cowsills, Archies, old Buddah Records singles, or any other late-'60s/early-'70s silliness. But it's like I overdosed & had to put it down for awhile.
Continued with Hunter S. Thompson's massive collection of letters THE PROUD HIGHWAY, which includes letters from all the way back to his 1957 days in the Air Force -- a marriage that didn't last too long. At one point Thompson wrote to a friend that for some obvious reason "the Air Force and writers just don't see eye to eye. ... I'm one of many writers who come in, do their time, and then leave as soon as possible." Had no trouble relating to THAT, it had me laughing out loud. Maybe I just need to read about something OTHER than music for awhile....

#693: "Sitting on the beach like Clarence in Wonderland...."

Hey, Kevin Ayers died back in February, he was almost 70 years old. Ghod, I used to be so ON TOP of this stuff, what the hell happened...?
Founder-member of Soft Machine, longtime eccentric solo artist, ol' deep-smooth-voice Kevin Ayers left a mark on my life with his mid-'70s album of singles & outtakes, ODD DITTIES, which I used to sing-along-with huge sections of back in my Silly Period (Summer '78) while sharing an apartment with old buddies Don Vincent and Jeff Mann.
Even back then I remember being mildly disappointed with ODD DITTIES because it wasn't more "Canterbury-sound"-like, was way closer to the Incredible String Band than to Soft Machine or Caravan.
But I bought the album based on Ayers' reputation & because there were a LOT of talented folks on it: Guitarists Mike Oldfield & Steve Hillage, keyboardist/composer Dave Bedford, improvising saxophonist Lol Coxhill, almost all of the members of Caravan, almost all of Soft Machine on the silly singalong "Soon Soon Soon," still one of my favorites (it opens with the line "What do you know about Nothing, people?" Where do you go from there?) -- & Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd allegedly played guitar on "Singing a Song in the Morning."
But once I got comfortable with the record & Ayers' whimsical lighter-than-air outlook, there was some great stuff inside: "Butterfly Dance" was 2 songs squoze together -- one a moody ballad; the last half a joyous rocker; "Gemini Child" was a nice mid-tempo rocker, fairly straight-ahead for Ayers; there was the eerie, atmospheric "Lady Rachel;" and the French smoochers "Puis-je?" ("May I?") & "Jolie Madame," in which it became obvious that the laid-back Ayers could have seduced millions of women with just his voice.
But best of all was the goofy "Connie on a Rubber Band," with its silly lyrics, bouncy tune and catchy choruses -- apparently I used to sing it to myself a lot: "Let's go ... to my chateau...."
From this start, I tried some of Ayers' other work but was unable to get into it. THE CONFESSIONS OF DOCTOR DREAM was his most acclaimed album, & included a heavily-produced side-long title song, but I don't remember a thing about it now -- except that it didn't grab me.
Never heard any of Ayers' later, allegedly more commercial work with guitarist Ollie Halsall. Have never heard "Decadence," which is supposedly a less-than-nice portrait of doomy singer & former Velvet Underground vocalist Nico.
Ayers' Wikipedia page has some interesting details about his life -- including a story about how Ayers, Nico, John Cale & Brian Eno's live album JUNE 1, 1974 was a little more dramatic than intended, since Cale had discovered Ayers sleeping with Cale's wife the night before the concert. Maybe another woman had fallen for ol' deep-smooth-voice?
I STUPIDLY sold-off my copy of ODD DITTIES about a decade back because I hardly ever listened to it anymore. (Five pretty-great songs out of 16? Those old Harvest Heritage import albums were really pretty generous....) Vinyl copies will now run you $40 at Amazon.com -- & the CD could cost you even more.
But there are times I miss it -- like when my old high school sweetheart dropped me an e-mail this morning about Ayers' "Connie on a Rubber Band." She remembered me singing along with the silly lyrics 35 years ago -- but she couldn't remember who sang the song or where she could find it.
There are several Ayers best-of's available -- including a cheap single-disc that includes half of ODD DITTIES -- & a number called "Clarence in Wonderland" that could actually be "Connie" in disguise. I hope to get a copy of this soon so I can clear up this mystery....
On the other hand, Ayers probably would have liked the confusion....